


lessons

by Naraht



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 18:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: Teenage Victor longs, perhaps in vain, for Lilia's approval.





	lessons

**Author's Note:**

> While working on a much longer piece I came across this stray scene. I hope it stands on its own.

A hand on the shoulder, jerking it back into alignment. A hand on the hip, rotating it this way or that. An adjustment to the position of the fingers, stretching tendons he had never consciously felt before. That was the way Lilia's corrections went.

She soon grew impatient with the clumsiness of words. If he didn't respond satisfactorily to her direction, it quickly became physical. Her touches were firm, brusque, untender. They were economical, achieving exactly the adjustment needed. Often they hurt, forcing the body beyond its natural boundaries, towards the limit of perfection.

It reminded him of his mother. Although she had never cared about ice skating – something Victor's world championships and Olympic gold hadn't changed – she knew there was no point in doing something without trying to be the best. When he had decided as a boy that he wanted to be able to do a Biellman, she had spent months pressing and pulling him into the necessary stretches, forcing his leg upwards day by day. It was thanks to her that he had mastered the Biellman spin, and thanks to her that he retained it even now.

Victor's body was as obedient under Lilia's hands as it had been under his mother's. Narrow, dry palms pressing against the fabric of his leggings. He arched his back, pushing back against her despite his best efforts. More, more.

"There," she said, and released him. "There. Hold."

He held his body poised as she had shaped him, feeling a twinge of regret as she released him, a twinge of effort as his muscles struggled to hold on their own what the pressure of her hands had sculpted. This was love; or if it was not, then it was all he would get.

Before he cut his hair, Lilia had sometimes braided it for him. He'd kept it long partly for that reason, wanting to keep her attention. She had criticised him for acting helpless, being unwilling to learn; he had earnestly professed his own incompetence. When her patience was finally exhausted, he had cut it short.

She was even less kind to him now, he thought. Perhaps because he was less flexible than he had been at sixteen, or perhaps because he was better. She expected more from him, which was only fair. But Victor also wondered whether she had also become harsher with him as her relationship with Yakov had deteriorated, if she was punishing his student in place of her husband.

"I don't know why you bother with ballet any more," said Lilia as Victor fell raggedly out of the pose he had fought to maintain. "You've obviously lost interest."

The subtext: _I don't know why I bother with you anymore._

Victor wiped the sweat from his brow, relaxed against the barre, smiled. That much he had learned from her: _when you're tired, smile; if it hurts, smile; never show weakness or pain._

"You're very patient with me," he said untruthfully.

Lilia looked him up and down. "You've put on too much muscle. It's destroying your flexibility. Yakov should know better. He's a fool. Again."

So Victor did it again, hoping for the brush of perfection – or, if not that, for the reparative brush of Lilia's hands.

As long as she still touched him, still corrected him, it would mean that she hadn't given up on him entirely.


End file.
